“Once seen as a niche market, WAN optimization has turned into a must-have technology for almost any multi-site organization or those with multiple remote workers,” said Mark Tauschek, Lead Research Analyst for Info-Tech Research Group. “Mobile workers and those working in branch offices need rapid access to centralized applications and the important data contained within. WAN optimization solutions are essential to making this a smooth operation for all.”

As an industry pioneer, Cisco provides a solid offering with a very flexible footprint appealing to both SMB and large enterprises. They have a very strong sales and support organization and are listed as a Champion in the report.

Riverbed was also listed as a Champion, leading in both the product and vendor axes. Dominating the market with over 40% market share, Riverbed continues to grow and continues to make investments to give customers a more complete view of WAN performance.

A vendor to watch in this space is Blue Coat Systems. Recently acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, they continue to take full advantage of their traffic-shaping abilities to provide greater visibility into network traffic. This technology was acquired during their acquisition of Packeteer in 2008. Blue Coat is now focused on accelerating web and video applications and have been awarded the “Innovation Award” by Info-Tech Research Group.